


Yessir, That's Our (Second) Baby

by DrEggSandwich



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Adoption, Episode: s08e15 Yessir That's Our Baby, Fix-It, Gen, also in the 50s people got adopted with practically no papers half the time, but it happened, but its my au and i do what i want, doubtful legality, mostly to their detriment, vague donna/charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26309893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrEggSandwich/pseuds/DrEggSandwich
Summary: They'd struck out at the Red Cross, ICORPS, the Korean Government, and now the American Consulate in Tokyo. But who do Charles and Hawkeye know who's stationed in Tokyo and could probably be convinced into some extralegal shenanigans?
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Yessir, That's Our (Second) Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolutely not beta-read. Hope it's decent anyway. Also I have a whole future fic continued from this AU but its mostly in note format right now. Also if anyone has a better title suggestion - PLEASE tell me.

Hawkeye and Charles stood in their hotel room in Tokyo after being escorted out of the American Consulate by security and advised in no uncertain terms never to return. Hawkeye paced and talked to himself between gulps of some kind of mildly fancy alcohol. Charles had calmed down since his earlier outburst, and sat on one of the beds, matching Hawkeye drink for drink. Suddenly, Hawkeye stopped his pacing.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed gleefully, throwing himself onto his bed and reaching for the phone.

“What’s it, Pierce?”

“Charles, these people, they’re all about connections, right?”

“Right”

“Well who do we know who loves shenanigans, is stationed in Tokyo, and has plausible deniability because of her job?”

A light seemed to come on behind Charles’ exhausted eyes.

“That’s right, the former Mrs Chuck Winchester the Third!” Hawkeye finished with a giggle. “Oh, Operator, can you get me the Red Cross headquarters in Tokyo, please?”

“Give me that phone!” Charles snapped, taking the receiver out of Hawkeye’s hands. “This is Major Charles Emerson Winchester, I’d like to speak to Miss Donna Marie Parker, please.”

\-------------

Donna came by the hotel during her lunch break. The two surgeons explained the situation to her as best they could. She was glad to see them, especially Charles, and could see how desperate they were.

“This isn’t going to be easy, you know. I understand the urgency, but what will happen to the baby once she’s in America? Have you thought this through?” she asked

“So you won’t help us.” Hawkeye huffed.

“I didn’t say that!” Donna objected, “Just that your plan has some holes.”

“What about, what about Hunnicutt?” Charles added, “He’s got a wife, a family, they could adopt her”

“Perfect, Charles! They live in San Francisco, too, so there’s no internal flights involved or anything, just get the baby to America and Peg Hunnicutt will take it from there” Hawkeye said.

“Shouldn’t you ask her first?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Charles, get the 4077th on the phone I need to talk to BJ”

“Talk to him, talk to his wife, talk to whoever. I have to get back to work, but I’ll be back at 5.”

\---------------

“4077th MASH, what can I do for you?” Klinger’s voice answered the phone after an interminable amount of ringing.

“KLINGER! Finally! I need to speak with Captain Hunnicutt immediately!”

“Major? How did it go? Is she getting her papers?”

“It’s complicated, Klinger, just get me BJ, immediately!”

“Comin’ right up, sir”

...

“Hey, BJ, Major Winchester is on the phone for you, says it’s urgent” Klinger said as he approached BJ in Post-Op. BJ handed the chart he was holding to Nurse Baker and asked her to keep an eye on the patients for him as he dashed off to the office.

“Hello, Charles? What’s the news?”

“Beej!” Hawkeye’s voice sounded over the phone, “The embassy was a bust, but we’ve got a plan, how do you feel about adoption?”

“Me? Adopt the baby?”

“Yeah, I’d do it myself but I don’t have a wife at home”

“We both talked to that Colonel, Hawk, adoption could take until she’s an adult!”

“Yeah if we did it through the army, but uh, you remember Donna, Mrs-Winchester-that-wasn’t?”

“Uh-huh?”

“She thinks she can get the kid stateside if we can figure out where she goes from there.”

“Yes! I mean, I have to talk to Peg – I mean”

“Okay, okay, go call Peg! Then call us right back!”

...

“Klinger, I need to get a call through to Mill Valley”

\---------------

5 PM rolled around, Donna came back after work, and Hawkeye and Charles had yet to receive a phone call from the 4077th. They bumped into each other repeatedly as they both tried to pace in the small hotel room. Donna watched them from the chair by the window with something between amusement and concern. The phone rang. They both lunged for it, but Hawkeye was standing closer.

“Hello?”

“Hawkeye, she said yes!” BJ’s voice came over the receiver, and Hawkeye’s worried face lit up in a grin.

“That’s great! Okay, we’ll figure everything out on this end, I’ll see you tomorrow, Beej.”

“Bye, Hawk”

“Bye Daddy”

...

“They’re adopting her” Hawkeye said, turning around with a flourish. Charles hugged Donna and spun her around in joy. Then he realised what he had done and backed up with some blushing stammered apologies while Donna and Hawkeye laughed.

Once she’d caught her breath, Donna sat down again in her chair, “Okay, let’s figure this out.”

\-------------

Charles and Hawkeye were on the 6 AM flight to Seoul the next day. Donna didn’t go with them. Half the camp seemed to surround them as they pulled up in their Jeep at 3 PM.

“Colonel, could we see you in your office, please?” Charles said as Hawkeye tried to placate and shoo the crowd without actively saying ‘hey we figured out a solution that is very illegal’. Around ten minutes later, they were in Colonel Potter’s office, along with Potter, BJ, Margaret, and Father Mulcahy. Margaret wasn’t technically invited but she insisted on being there anyway.

“All right, what’s the scuttlebutt? Is she going stateside or not? Why the secrecy?” Potter asked.

“Well, you see, Colonel – “ Charles began

“She’s going stateside.” Hawkeye interrupted, to cheers from Potter, Margaret, and Mulcahy, “But not with the US Embassy.”

“How do you mean, son?”

“Well, we, uh, found an alternate route.” Hawkeye responded

“He means we – uh – we’re…” Charles tried to clarify.

“What they both mean, Colonel, is they’ve found a private citizen willing to take her to the US, where Peg will take her.” BJ explained.

“A private citizen? Without papers? That’s human trafficking!” Margaret chimed in.

“Human trafficking for a good cause” Hawkeye began, and Potter shushed him.

“Who is this private citizen and how are you so sure they can be trusted?” he asked.

“Colonel, you remember my old friend Miss Parker.”

“They were briefly fake-married.” BJ added. Potter still looked unsure.

“She’s Red Cross, gives her plausible deniability.” Father Mulcahy speculated out loud.

“Sure beats staying here.” Hawkeye added

“And you and the missus are adopting the little girl?” Potter asked BJ, who nodded firmly with a grin. “Well I’ll be. Now all of you understand this can’t leave this room, right?”

“Right.”

“But since it’s just us here, Hunnicutt, I think congratulations are in order!” Potter said, pouring a glass of scotch and passing it to BJ. They toasted, hugged, cried a little, and then went off about their various duties. 

\-----------

Donna Marie Parker arrived by Jeep from Kimpo airbase in Seoul four days later. She didn’t stay long, just took the baby, for the time being nicknamed ‘Jane’ as in ‘Jane Doe’, and drove back off. Or rather, she arrived on a Jeep by herself, and returned being driven by Klinger, as she couldn’t drive and hold a baby at the same time. Along with Jane went several letters, most of them written by camp members for the child when she got older, and a few with written explanations and instructions for Peg of things that couldn’t have been said over the phone or the army-censored mail.

See, Donna had gotten herself a week off of work, in which she would travel to Seoul, then Uijeoungbu, pick up the baby, go back to Seoul, then Tokyo, then Guam, Honolulu, and finally, San Francisco, where she would meet Peg Hunnicutt, drop off the baby, spend the night, and then head right back to Tokyo in time to have an actual day off before returning to work. The whole time pretending she was on official Red Cross business in order to get the child through customs and immigration. 

\----------

Peg Hunnicutt stood in the arrivals area of the military airport in San Francisco with her young daughter Erin. Erin was sitting on the floor, which Peg had tried to get her not to do at first, but after they’d been standing for over an hour and Erin was getting fussy, she had given in. Peg shifted her weight from one foot to the other to relieve the ache in her legs. She didn’t really know what to expect. BJ had called her last week asking if she would be okay with adopting a child, then two days ago called again saying a woman was coming and to meet her at the airport on this day, but that he couldn’t give any more details. Honestly, Peg felt a little bit like she was unsure all of this was really happening, but she felt that a lot these days. She had never expected her life to turn out this way, and when you love someone you can only speak to through censored letters, even their presence seems to fade into unreality. But, she was here. On the day she was meant to be. And she waited.

When Donna walked through the doors with a small suitcase in one arm and a baby in the other, Peg recognized her instantly as the woman she was supposed to meet. Women were scarce coming off of military transports, and babies even less so, after all.

“Come on up, Erin, we’re going to meet your baby sister” she said, taking Erin by the hand and making a beeline for the clearly exhausted woman. “Hello, I’m Peg Hunnicutt” she said as she reached Donna.

“Mrs Hunnicutt! I’m Donna, it’s good to meet you!”

“Oh thank goodness, I was afraid I’d approached the wrong woman with a baby. Please, call me Peg.” Peg joked and Donna laughed.

“Would you like to hold her?”

“Oh, of course, you must be tired” Peg responded, taking the baby into her arms. She was sleeping soundly, couldn’t have been more than six to eight months old. She looked nothing like BJ, and Peg felt herself tearing up.

“Hello there, you must be Miss Erin Hunnicutt!” Donna said, crouching down to Erin’s level, where she was hidden behind her mother’s legs. “I don’t bite”

“Don’t worry she’s just shy” Peg said, sniffing back her tears. “Erin, honey, this is Miss ..?”

“Parker, but she can call me Donna”

“Miss Donna. Donna, this is Erin.”

Erin held out a tiny hand to shake Donna’s.

After shuffling around the baby, the toddler, and the luggage, the two women headed to the car – Peg holding Erin’s hand and the luggage, and Donna carrying the baby. On the drive back to Mill Valley, Donna told the story of her arduously long journey, as well as stories about BJ and the camp where he lived from the two very short times she had been there. Peg laughed and hummed where appropriate. They had to pull up to the side of the road at one point when the baby woke herself up with a dirty diaper and her crying set off Erin’s crying. 

...

At home, Peg heated pasta on the stove, set the baby in Erin’s old bassinet, fed Erin, and set up the guestroom. Donna did her best to help, but was addled with exhaustion and jetlag. They ate and put Erin to bed. These days, Erin could sleep in her child bed in her own room, but was sleeping on the big bed with her mother. After taking a shower, Donna headed downstairs to where Peg was doing the dishes.

“Peg?”

“Yes? Is there something you need? I put the sheets out in the guestroom.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine”

“Okay. Here’s a letter from your husband. He talks about you and Erin constantly.”

Peg smiled and thanked her as she took the letter then turned around to wipe her eyes. Donna went to bed. Peg stayed up reading BJ’s letter over and over.

\---------------

_Dear Peg,_

_I love you so much. But that’s something I can say in the regular mail, this letter is for all the things I can’t. But I have to say it anyway. I love you._

_I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to be on your own with a baby, much less two, but I didn’t know what else to do. We tried everything. I’m the only one of us senior staffers with a wife and kid back home. I wish I didn’t have to burden you with more than you are already burdened with._

_We’ve been calling the baby Jane, like Jane Doe, but you’re welcome to name her anything you like. By the time you read this, you’ll have already met Donna. I thought, to thank her for the huge favour, that it might make a nice middle name. The baby is around six months old, from what we can tell, you’ll probably have to pick out a birthday for her, too. Mixed-race kids are really mistreated here, especially orphans. Father Mulcahy says there’s usually extensive abuse, even mutilation or death. I know America isn’t exactly great for mixed-race kids either, but at least she’ll be alive._

_You can’t tell anyone she’s from Korea. I mean, you probably figured that, but we really tried every legal avenue here. What Donna’s doing for us is technically human trafficking. But with the crazy amount of adoptions happening these days, one kid, even an Amerasian kid, should be pretty easy to slip past the radar, if she was registered as American to begin with._

_I can only imagine the difficulties you have to deal with. I love you with all of my heart. Hawk told me to assure you it’s not my baby. As if. I almost punched out the smarmy Colonel at ICORPS who said as much when we were trying to get Jane stateside using army channels. Don’t worry, I won’t punch Hawkeye, I know he doesn’t mean it._

_Tell Erin I love her very much. And Jane, too. And, of course, you. I will be home as soon as I can._

_And since this is the only letter I’m ever going to get to send you that won’t pass through a censor……_

\--------------

“Mail Call!” Klinger said as he strolled merrily into the Swamp. “Pierce! Winchester! Hunnicutt! Hunnicutt! Hunnicutt!” he said as he tossed the letters to their respective owners. Three weeks had passed since the incident with the baby, and all the letters that had arrived from Peg since were dated before Donna’s journey to San Francisco. BJ anxiously tore into the first letter.

“He-hey! Listen to this! ‘Dear BJ, you know how we always wanted more kids? Well I have a wonderful surprise for you. I’ve adopted a baby girl. She’s six months old, her name is Jane Donna Hunnicutt, and she weighs 16 pounds 7 ounces. Also in this envelope I’ve enclosed a picture of the three of us.’” He read out loud. Hawkeye hugged him and cheered and Klinger and Charles couldn’t keep the smiles off their faces. BJ pulled the small photo out of the envelope. Klinger and Charles crowded around to look at it also. Peg, in a beautiful but simple dress, with Erin on one knee and Jane in her other arm. BJ started to tear up.

“Come on, daddy, let’s show your new daughter to the rest of the camp” Hawkeye said, snatching the photo and one of BJ’s wrists and dragging him out of the tent.

**Author's Note:**

> Hawkeye is not calling BJ daddy in a sex way, but in a teasing "you are going to be a father again" way.


End file.
